Chicken Baked in Sherry and Cream is an elegant mid-century chicken dish, suitable for entertaining. This recipe comes to me originally from a 1949 cookbook published by the Eugene (Oregon) Welfare League, now the Eugene Junior League. Like most Junior Leaguer recipes, this dish has a distinct fancy company vibe. The ingredient list is classy……
Ingredient: garlic salt
Meat-Potatoburgers (adapted from Money-Saving Main Dishes, 1966)
Meat-Potatoburgers is a recipe that perfectly encapsulates the spirit of Money-Saving Main Dishes (1966). Judging by name alone I was expecting Meat-Potatoburgers to resemble certain Depression-era burgers, like the Mississippi slugburger or Oklahoma Onion Burger. There are any number of regional variants, many of which are still available if you know where to look, but……
Beef and Noodles Italiano (Missouri, 1964, adapted)
Beef and Noodles Italiano is a hearty two-pot-one-meal pasta dish with vaguely Italian sensibilities. Adapted from a 1964 community cookbook published by the St. Louis Symphony, Beef and Noodles Italiano has a little bit of a fancy company vibe to it, in keeping with the mildly patrician sensibilities of the rest of the book. The……
Oktoberfest Potato Pancakes (adapted from Beta Sigma Phi International Cookbook, 1956)
Despite not having a lick of German heritage, the German language is spoken frequently in our house. My spouse and I both learned German in high school, and my daughter has two years of college German under her belt. None of us are anywhere near fluent but we’re fairly competent, enough for a week abroad……
Breast of Ozark Fryer Parisienne (adapted from Beta Sigma Phi International Cookbook, 1956)
The presumptious-sounding Breast of Ozark Fryer Parisienne is a simple and elegant chicken-and-toast entrée. The recipe is adapted from the 1956 Beta Sigma Phi International Cookbook, one of nearly a dozen smothered-in-sauce chicken recipes from the extensive chapter on “meats”. The good ladies of mid-century Beta Sigma Phi were perhaps too patrician to follow……
Instant Pot Onion Tomato Soup (adapted from the Tastes of Home, 2005)
One of my favorite recipes from The Tastes of Home is a simple Onion Tomato Soup. There’s no particular genius to this recipe but it surprised me with its simplicity and elegance. At heart it’s a French onion soup recipe, with silky thin-sliced onions in a hearty beef broth. Toss in a can of tomatoes……
Polish Porcupines (Indiana, 1984, adapted)
Nearly every church cookbook I own from the 1960s – 1980s has some form of recipes for “porcupines”. They are usually little more than meatballs mixed with uncooked rice. As they cook the meat contracts and the rice expands to form “quills” on the surface of the meatball – hence the porcupine. Truth be told……
Tennessee Barbecue Sauce (Tennessee, 1978)
I’ve lived out West all my life where “barbecue” means either tri-tip, hamburgers, or some sort of hodgepodge of Kansas City and Texas-style barbecue from somewhere else in the United States. I’ve traveled enough to realize that this it utter heresy to some folks, where each regional variant is held as the one true barbecue…….